Mirrors
by She's a Star
Summary: If it is a miracle, she had decided long ago, then they are in actuality rather dismal things.


**Mirrors**

_By She's a Star_

**Disclaimer:** Moulin Rouge is not mine. Well, actually, I do have the DVD _and_ the video (I go all out, to be sure) but, y'know, the actual big ol' movie? Nope. Not mine.

**Author's Note:** This is faintly bizarre. I was rather annoyed that I couldn't write, and therefore sat and . . . wrote something. This is yet another one of those lovely Satine-didn't-die-and-married-the-Duke concepts, just because I am dazzlingly original. J (Is it sad that all the smileys on MS Word turn out to be J's once uploaded onto Ff.N, or what? I mean, major tragedy there) Aand . . . yep, this is weird, but I think I kinda like it. I had fun with the characterization with this one – I haven't written Satine like that before. Soooo, yeah. I'm done rambling now and everything!

            Her only friends in this place are mirrors. For they are nearly everywhere, she's discovered, if you know quite how to spot them – there are the grand ones, obvious with their gilded frames and sharply shining glass, as well as the more subtle: the undusted corners of the china cabinet and the windows at twilight.

            She's stared at herself so often that it's turned into a sort of game. She pulls herself apart into different facades, some that she still practices and others that are useless to her now. Occasionally, she doesn't bother to pretend at all, only because it is always a peculiar thing, looking at herself then.

            She isn't sure whether he's noticed it or not. It wouldn't surprise her either way, really: on one hand, his eyes grow sharper when he looks at her, in a way that makes her feel almost as though he is always watching her, even though it is, of course, a foolish notion. On another, she isn't sure that he looks so much as simply watches. Stares vacantly, the way a little girl might at a less-favoured doll.

            Living seems entirely pointless an affair, these days, and she figures that she only bothers with it at all because dying would be so troublesome. She remembers six years ago, or seven maybe; in any case, another life, something that feels ever so many forevers apart. She'd been quite positive that she was dying then, and at that time, foolishly, she'd clung to life anyway. She'd been young and ridiculously in love, and what painted the illusion that there was something to live for any better than that?

            Of course, he is gone now, her writer, and her thoughts wonder idly to him on occasion. She wonders whether he is married – she hopes that if he is, it is to a pretty girl with blonde ringlets; someone from a good family with a reasonable amount of money and a demure sweetness to her. She imagines that that is the sort of woman he was meant to fall in love with, and she herself was only a mistake. An err of fate; a minor distraction.

            She's seen his books in shops before, but hasn't so much as touched them. They have senselessly romantic titles that she can't recall, and his name spelt out below them. It is something like the dream she had once of seeing hers in lights, she supposes.

            She remembers very acutely singing to him, a childish, maudlin plea, a question, a ridiculously circumlocutory way of expressing a single sentiment—

            _'Stay.'_

            He hadn't, of course, and sometimes she has nightmares in which it happens again and she's forced to look on, powerless, as he simply walks away.

            Part of her quite suspects that if he'd stayed, she'd have died that night. Simply because everything would have been at peace then, and death could no longer quite pose as something fearsome when one had attained that sort of solace.

            The cough still reappears from time to time; the doctors don't quite understand it. She isn't sure that she can count the number of times they've used the word 'miracle' in relation to her.

            If it is a miracle, she had decided long ago, then they are in actuality rather dismal things.

            She has taken to attending church services on Sunday mornings, if only because some part of her rather enjoys the irony of it. She looks the perfect society lady, of course, and so it is simple – no one questions her position. She traces crosses over her forehead and lips and heart and it amuses her that sinful hands have touched all of these places.

            She isn't quite sure that she believes in God. It doesn't seem to matter either way, for if He does exist, then He certainly does not care for her.

            Right after finding out about her impending demise, faded lifetimes ago, she had put on a white dress and gone to a church. It had been empty, save for the ethereal presence it had held in that instant, and she'd spilled out in pathetic, broken whispers every sin and wish and empty hope, and of course all of them had come back to him. She remembers her own trembling voice in her ears, all at once too loud and hardly there. _"Please, let Christian be all right. Let him be happy. Please."_

            Love is a strange thing.

            Most of her can't even remember it now, for she's grown so used to her husband's worthless words and stale touch. He calls her ridiculous things when he bothers speak at all, things that she assumes are supposed to haunt her. _My diamond.__ My star._ There's an underlying threat in his poorly feigned compassion, something that takes her back to that night, her lies drawing something dark from him as faint traces of melodies – something Spanish, she recalls – twist through the air.

            It used to frighten her, because she is quite sure she's never felt fear the way she did that night.

            It hardly seems even alarming now.

            When it rains outside, she stares into the windows instead of out of them and traces her own features in the condensation. She is highly regarded as a great beauty, and has been all her life. She can't remember a time she wasn't considered so. And she's heard horror stories all her life, of course, about beauty fading – Marie spoke of it often, for it was every courtesan's undoing.

            Now, she feels almost eager as she awaits old age, ugliness, faded beauty. It seems an interesting concept, and she'll hardly miss the ivory of her skin or the delicate sharpness of her features. This is what has trapped her throughout her life, after all, and she muses over this foreign concept – the idea of not being caged.

            She imagines going back to her writer, once her skin is lined and the red of her hair has begun to surrender to gray. _'Come what may,'_ she might whisper, and he'll look through her imperfections – outside at the rain instead of being swept up by the glass that reveals it – and recognize that he will always love her.

            It is a funny thought, such a foolish little fairy tale, and she laughs aloud at the ridiculousness of the very idea.

            The sound rings through the silent room as she pulls the curtains shut.


End file.
